


Ice and Steel

by Iris_Celeno



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: A girl still loves her bastards, F/M, Inside a girl's mind, Jaqen cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 21:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13820064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iris_Celeno/pseuds/Iris_Celeno
Summary: A girl has retrieved her sight but has been plagued by curious visions. Arya Stark begins where No One ends.Rated T for language only.





	Ice and Steel

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Between 6x03 and 6x05  
> Pairing: Arya/Gendry feelings.  
> Book spoilers: None.  
> Warning: Those are Arya's feelings and an overview of her journey. She's the only character here, bar a short Jaqen cameo. Many Easter eggs, though.  
> No beta-ed, please forgive any mistake you might find.

The air of the great city was full of fragrances, salt and oranges and spices and roasted meat with a hint of elsewhere. It was bustling with sounds, too. Seagulls cackling, people talking, a shout here and there, wood banging on wood or metal and always, in the background, the smooth roll of the waves bumping against the sturdy stones of the canals. It was warm and pleasant, all life and vivid colors.

But of this all a girl heard nothing, of this all a girl saw nothing, although she was blind no more. 

The dark alley where they had dragged her reeked of stagnant waters, rotten seashells and piss. The atmosphere was colder and humid here, for the sun didn't reach the ground, stopped by the high stone walls of the houses on each side of the narrow passage and their roofs almost touching. Everything was dreary grey and brown green hues, but for a pool of deep red spreading slowly on the ground. It was silent, too, since no one was there.

A girl didn't care about her gloomy surroundings, she didn't care that heavy rivulets made their way along her left hand and wrist, for her blue eyes that weren't hers were mesmerized by the dark scarlet stains trickling down the iron edge.

Yet the blade she was seeing wasn't the blade she was holding. It was bigger, larger, it belonged to a giant sword. The blood and dark hair on it was warm and dear and she knew that blood, it was ice, it was hers.

A sharp pang in her chest startled her. Why did she hurt? She wasn't wounded. In spite of the crowd jeering and clamoring somewhere in her head, she was aware that she was alone in here, she knew that both men were dead, dead well before they could touch her. Dead before they could even try. She had killed them with their own weapon.

She shook her head, the move making her long wheat blond hair that wasn't hers either fall free from its half undone bun. She dropped the sword as if it burned, forced her gaze away from it. The sounds and feel of the crowd, of hot and dry heat, faded away and a black silhouette smelling of pinewood, wild animal and cold earth blurred then disappeared along with the rattling of the metal as it hit the stone ground.

A girl repressed her uneasiness, her present coming into focus at long last. The loud trumpeting of a horn had her open her eyes just in time to catch, through the narrow mouth of the backstreet, a small and sleek red boat passing fluidly on the Long Canal. It was gorgeous under the dazzling daylight pouring outside, but the view only prompted her to swear. 

She had missed it. Jaqen would be displeased, the Waif would be smug. She shrugged defiantly, her brazen attitude at odds with the soft features and shy expression of her borrowed face. Instead of heading for the canal, she took another alley and then turned right, left, right, in the maze of Silty Town which after so long she knew like her own pocket, until she arrived in a minuscule square wrapped in shadows where surprisingly pure water leaked from an old rusty fountain in shape of a fish.

This face was a hassle, she internally grumbled while she washed her hands, with swiftness and skill denoting how familiar she was with the task of cleaning. She had worn it twice before and twice men had come after her, although so far she had managed to elude their company without granting the gift. Well, yes, one of the fellows died, the second time. But she had just meant to knock him out. It wasn't her fault if he was half drunk and tumbled on his own to drown in the canal afterwards. 

No, a girl couldn't stand this face and she could have sworn that the Waif gave it to her on purpose, just to spite her. She didn't feel comfortable wearing it. It was heart-shaped and lovely, coming with dainty pink lips, deep blue eyes and a fair complexion; it couldn't but draw unwanted attention. Yet more than its beauty it was an air of fragility, of maiden in distress, something akin to a helpless little bird that attracted the most unsavory lot...It wasn't good to look helpless, less when you had something people wanted and when you were a woman, there was always one thing men would want from you. Looking sweet, looking innocent, looking weak made the most cowardly daring, since they assume they could easily get it.

She readjusted her bodice, checked for blood stains on the billowing skirts of the blue dress and let her annoyance over little details flow in order to forget the disturbingly real images.  
She grasped her hair to redo her bun, and blinked. The golden locks had turned into a vivid shade of copper red and suddenly in her head someone was pouting and whining, then girls were laughing and the air around her smelled of coal and hearth, of baking powder, of lemons. And somewhere else among the rocks, a gravelly voice with spiteful tones talked of a wolf bitch, of a little bird and also screamed for mercy...

Mercy. She wasn't Mercy, she wasn't wearing Mercy today. She probably wouldn't wear Mercy again. Jaqen and the Waif, they didn't like what Mercy did. 

She frowned. What did Mercy do, already? 

She slapped her own cheeks, hard, to straighten her thoughts, and resumed properly styling tresses that had now retrieved their original blond color.

Why was everything so weird? Where did those visions plaguing her come from?

A girl shouldn't try to find out. 

But today she missed her target because of them, although it wasn't the reason she'd give to Jaqen if he asked why she came back empty-handed. She sensed she shouldn't. Probably he would not be fooled, in spite of her being now quite good at the game of faces; but he didn't always ask or object. There were good chances he'd believe she missed the boat solely because two cunts dragged the pretty blond girl in that dark alley. One could say it was the Waif's fault. Or even Jaqen's himself. He had to know why a girl was given this particular face, yet said nothing and did nothing to prevent it.

She sat back on her knees and focused. She wasn't supposed to look into her past. She was supposed to forget everything but the information she collected. A girl was no one, a girl had no name, a girl had no memories. 

Nevertheless, a girl only aimed at serving the Many Faced God more efficiently. Besides, she wouldn't have to go far back. The visions had started quite recently. A fortnight, at the very most.

But when, exactly? 

The precise question came to a decision, and she allowed herself to delve into her own mind. 

Those images weren't dreams. In dreams was no past, no reality, only the moment. She never remembered anything but vague physical, almost animal sensations, which somehow appeased her. They didn't come in a flash, in a kind of frustratingly fast kaleidoscope that left her disturbed in its wake.

A flash. Disturbing. Nothing disturbed a girl anymore, it shouldn't be difficult to pinpoint when...

Here. That was it.

It all started with her first outdoors assignment since she recovered her eyesight. Following a handful of weeks where she worked in the Hall of Faces, mostly assisting Jaqen while he cut them off the dead, she had been sent to Ragman's Harbor with order to stroll around, observe, and report.

At one point she saw something and she felt a jolt, which she associated to the sound of a fabric being torn. A shredded veil. She immediately put a lid on it, she'd even forgotten what triggered it, exactly -Jaqen would be proud. But she could recall her surroundings, the street where it happened.

For sure, there lied the origin or her current predicament, and her impatience grew tenfold. 

Problem. She couldn't go to Ragman's Harbor with her current face. The place brimmed with foreign sailors, workers and thugs, most of them unable to afford a whore...And she didn't have another one on her.  
But she didn't want to wait. Couldn't. She didn't want to go back to the House while ignoring the nature of her problem. She'd lack confidence and Jaqen might guess her turmoil, then.

Wait a second...she did have another face. She had a girl's. 

She didn't use it outside yet since she was back in their good graces, they gave her another one every day upon her leaving the House. But she somehow knew that a girl didn't have voluptuous curves. A girl didn't have lovely honey-colored hair or sky blue eyes. A girl could walk unnoticed and even pass off as a boy. 

_...you moron. This one's a girl._

A fork, a nape, the smell of dead people, dragon fire, rain, her legs were warm, rats, striking blue eyes with death in their depths: Another rush of nightmarish images assaulted her before she could shake them off.

With curiously unsteady hands, holding her breath, she took off the pretty face and did what she never cared to...or rather what she deliberately avoided, she finally admitted, because it was the last thing she saw before her world went black: She observed a girl's face in the water of the fountain. 

She had rather long hair. It was dark, darker than chestnut but not black and fell in straight-ish waves around her face and down to her shoulders. Said face was ovale, all in long lines, the mouth small and chiseled. A girl had thick eyebrows and big eyes, their color clear but their expression unfathomable. 

_I see a darkness in you._

She didn't look beautiful nor helpless like the blond girl, but maybe it was worse: Her face was interesting and therefore, noticeable.

She frowned, stood up to look at a girl's body. The lines were lean, too, but definitely feminine in the blue dress. A girl had to be a grown woman, of six or seven and ten maybe, she couldn't disguise herself as a boy easily. However she was short and had a juvenile air about her. If she changed the shrewd look in her eyes, her demeanor, and her clothes, maybe she could still manage it. 

She put back the annoying face and made her way back in the labyrinth of streets. A couple of minutes later, she emerged from another alley near the Long Canal. 

She turned right, turned left, left again, found herself in the market place. She took a flight of stairs, then another smaller one, and stopped on the landing. As she expected, the washerwomen had their linen drying on the embankment nearby. Nobody would suspect the doe-eyed blond girl of pilfering clothes, they'd just think she was getting back hers or her mother's, but she needed a place to change...So she went to explore behind the old wooden door on her left, in a recess of the wall, which she had noticed some days ago. 

It was an unoccupied little dark tunnel, a cul-de-sac. Perfect. 

***

A dozen minutes later, in her breeches, loose grey-ish shirt and big fisherman's cap hiding her hair and shadowing her face, a girl found herself wandering in Ragman's Harbor again.

She was prey to a weird sensation, thrilled and vaguely edgy at once. She shouldn't be here. They wouldn't like her to be here. They might blind her again. Or worse.

Fuck them, her own voice protested in the back of their mind.

_Fuck the King._

In truth, she was wary of what she might find, her pulse beating faster as she retraced her steps of the other day. She ambled along the docks. The thin man who used to like oysters and gambling on people's lives wasn't there anymore. Small barks were berthing, foreigners on board. 

_Too old._

She didn't linger, crossing the bridge and strolling hurriedly in the crowd, between the workshops and stalls, trying to pass as an apprentice sent for an errand. She was close, now, she was in the street where it happened, so she focused on sounds and smells, trying to recapture the moment.

Blabbers and yells, ale and bread, laughter and wails, coal and lime, the trade tongue and ten variations of high valyrian, sweat and horseshit... 

And in the midst of the chaos, a steady and rhythmical metallic noise beckoned her. She followed it, nerves tingling just like when she examined a girl's face. She peeked inside the small shop it came from. She barely felt the scorching heat emanating from the furnace at the center of it, because she found what she was looking for. 

She found him.

There was a smith working, his back to her, just like he did not a fortnight ago when she noticed him in passing, from the corner of her eye.

She took in every detail, as fast as her training had taught her.  
He had broad shoulders, yet his build was slender for someone as muscular as he was. Most smiths she had met she had likened to big old bulls, with as much fat as muscle, whereas this one reminded her of a a taut stag, or maybe a gracious black horse.  
Black, because it was the color of his hair, black as a crow's feathers, black as the night. It contrasted with his skin, she could see that it was fair under a good layer of soot, fairer than most black-haired people's skin in Essos.  
He was different from the others.

_Only he was different._

It hit her then, that pang in her heart, a wave of odors, sensations, emotions washing over her all at the same time and overwhelming her. She staggered under the physical shock, and had to place a hand against the door jamb to support herself. 

Loss, earth cold against her body, a fresh stream and brown leaves and annoyance and liars and a few smiles.  
Then back were piss and screams and rain and fear all around, the smell of the dead and dragonfire that had melt stone.  
A cave and fire and close, alone and red and sorrow and gone and hatred. 

And his name came to her. _Gendry._

She looked at the smith's back again. For a second she saw Gendry as clearly as if they were still in front of the forge in that broken castle's courtyard. Something warm and sweet blossomed in her empty heart and when she looked into it there were other names, other faces.

_Nymeria and father and mother and Robb and Bran and Rickon and Sansa. Syrio. Yoren. Hot Pie._

_Sandor Clegane._

She tried to grasp at the bright memories, but they escaped like sand between her fingers, leaving only death and blood behind, death and blood everywhere...

_Cersei. Ilyn Payne. The Mountain. Walder Frey. Beric Dondarrion. Thoros of Myr. The Red Woman._

When the smith turned around she was already cold inside, because she already knew. He wasn't hers.  
This one was a boy still, with black eyes and distinctive Volantese features, not almost a man grown with a square jaw and a gaze like blue soft fire. He wasn't as strong, he wasn't as precise, his blows were powerful but had an awkwardness to them. He didn't make steel sing. He didn't make her heart swell.

He wasn't her pack. He wasn't her family.

_You'd be milady._

A girl retreated between two stalls, leaned back against the wall. She closed her eyes, feelings she didn't understand at the time finding a name, and what she knew then adjusting to what she knew now.

That woman in red, she was a priestess of the Red God. In Braavos, a girl came to learn what they did. 

They burned people alive. 

Something wet rolled down her cheek. She wiped it swiftly, glancing around to ensure that no one paid attention to her. She had to go back, she shouldn't come back empty-handed and late, but she couldn't bring herself to. She wasn't ready. 

Chest and feet heavy, she wandered aimlessly on the docks, until she found herself on a familiar little pier and stared at the sea.

Alone on a boat in the middle of the ocean, free at last, going away from death and blood and people taken away from her.

She still had everywhere else to go, but nowhere she belonged because nobody was waiting for her. All of them were dead or lost to her, all of them were ghosts, and with them she had gone. There was nothing left of her.

A girl had no name, a girl had no past...

But in her memories, her ghosts were still alive. 

It was beyond her strength to kill them all over again. 

Her gaze veered off to the small stone wall, and she invoked the one name she had been unable to give up on. The only one whom she believed was still alive, somewhere in this world.

_Jon._

It came back to her then, who he was, his handsome face, his gentleness, how he understood her. 

_I'm going to miss you._

Jaqen and the Waif, they used to make her call him her “half-brother” during the game of faces. As if his birth had ever mattered to her. He _was_ her brother, the one she loved best, and she was lying through her teeth every time she uttered that “half” word. Yet, they never suspected anything...

So why would they suspect if she kept another bastard she had loved alive in the secret of her heart?

She could hide him and her other ghosts, like she did Jon's smile. They had been there all along, she had just willed herself into forgetting about them. It wouldn't change anything if she was now aware of their presence. She could tuck them away deep inside, where Jaqen and the Waif would never find them.

After all, as long as she didn't claim a name of her own, a girl would still be No One.

_I have a needle of my own._

She gave a last look at the stone wall and walked away, her serenity retrieved, certain that since she had reclaimed her pack, the visions would stop and that she was now armed against whatever waited for her. 

_The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives._

***

The Waif wasn't there when she came back at the House of Black and White. A girl reported to Jaqen later while he worked on a corpse; she told him she missed the boat on the Long Canal and tried, but couldn't find a way to get on board elsewhere. He shrugged and didn't ask further, his face unreadable in the half-light.

But again, he was cutting the face off the body of a first man a girl had stuck with the pointy end.

**Author's Note:**

> Too weird? It was in gestation for the longest time and I unexpectedly found the missing pieces in the last couple of days.  
> Arya was brainwashed, she repressed and dissociated from her memories. Those aren't terms I could use in her POV, so I hope it comes across through the way they come back to her.  
> I felt that there was some parts of her training missing, as well as a stage between the moment she was No One in 6x03 and her watching the play in 6x05.  
> I consider that the Waif didn't call her Lady Stark before 6x05 (not that it was a name Arya would accept as hers anyway).  
> Thank you for reading! I hope it was enjoyable enough.


End file.
